


don't run either away or toward the sound

by somethingdifferent



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Cold War, F/M, Post-World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-04-06 20:51:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4236171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingdifferent/pseuds/somethingdifferent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>She felt, for some unexplainable reason, that she must keep her eyes on this man at all times, as if he were the razor edge of a cliff.</em> A man with eyes as gray as the walls is teaching her how to lie. A locked room scenario in four movements.</p>
<p>[petyr/sansa; cold war au]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the black gun i imagine

**Author's Note:**

> Title and chapter titles taken from "Helsinki Winter 2013" by Moonface.

 

 

 

Love is a continual interrogation. I don't know a better definition of love.  
**MILAN KUNDERA**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

** i. **

the black gun i imagine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wires ran across the floor like cut strips of paper that had spilled onto the ground, so many she could hardly believe they were all for one purpose. They connected to the device perched at the edge of the table, connected to the band around her right arm, connected to the buzzer on the forefinger of her right hand. The buzzer just grazed her knuckle, the one that wouldn't heal over from the scab she kept picking at, for lack of anything else to do.

The man across from her had not yet spoken, had not said a single word since he entered the room fifteen minutes earlier. Not so much as a _hello_. He focused solely on the device, the device that had appeared in her room only a few days previously, suddenly there and immovable and without a single hint as to its purpose. The man, she thought to herself, though she said nothing aloud, was cut from the same cloth.

If she had been leading another life, Sansa might have thought that there was nothing to fear from this man. He was not tall, only just the same height as herself, and he was thin - wiry, perhaps, she had no way of truly telling underneath his suit, the fabric so black it was almost dizzying to look at. He was not an officer, she knew that much; indeed, he wore nothing on his person that would indicate who he worked for at all. His only additions to his apparel were his pin, a bird sitting still on a single branch that reached across his tie, and his horn-rimmed glasses that flashed in the over bright light and hid his eyes from her. He was not so old as her father had been, though not as young as Joffrey, either. His hair was still thick and dark, but beginning to gray at the temples, and his hands were not wrinkled or cracked, but still large and strong-looking, the veins there raised and thick like ropes spanning underneath his skin.

All of this Sansa saw, Sansa catalogued, from the moment he shut the door with a quiet click to the moment he finished fitting her into the wires and sat down in his own chair, across the table from her.

The wires all have a specific use, Cersei had told her at the beginning, smiling at her with crooked teeth underneath her red mouth, her lipstick running into the wrinkles beginning to form around her lips. She had been perfectly still, behind smooth, impenetrable glass, and she was getting old. Sansa had thought the woman beautiful, at one time, yet sitting there she had hardly been able to imagine it. This was at the beginning, even before her first watcher. The people they sent might not have been called such a thing - Sansa rather thought the word lacked that small seed of intimidation they so desired in all of their terms - but she had no names for any of the people who appeared in her room. Cersei had been the only one in her time there to offer her name, and she was, Sansa could tell, one of only a few who had the privilege to do so.

But watch the watchers did, watch and sometimes, if she was very, very good, speak. There was a new one every few months, three in all since her nineteenth birthday. What she believed was her nineteenth birthday. She might have messed up her calendar somewhere along the way.

The first had been tall, large, imposing, with a burn covering half of his face. Sansa was afraid of him at the beginning, but he only appeared once or twice a week, only stayed for twenty minutes or so and looked at her red hair and looked at her pale throat, only said five words to her at all: the first time, _little bird_ , uttered with a twisted kind of panic, when she fell from her cot and bruised her knee against the unforgiving concrete floor; the second time, _sing to me_ , uttered desperately, from behind the door as they closed it while two men jerked him down the hall. She could still hear him through the wall as he shouted, _sing to me, little bird, sing to me, sing to me_ , so much so that she had to cover her ears as she sang in order to stand it. He quieted after that, though for what reason she did not know. Nor, she had decided, did she care to find out.

The second had been a woman, the only one of the three. She was nearly as huge as the first man, her short blonde hair cropped so close to her head that the first moment she appeared in the doorway Sansa believed her to be a man as well. Yet as she sat in the chair beside her door, Sansa perceived that the person was, in fact, a woman - rather plain and homely, save her brilliant blue eyes, but still a woman. For a few weeks, Sansa's mind ran away with the possibilities - _a woman!_ Perhaps, she hoped, her new watcher could be reasoned with - perhaps as another female Sansa might be able to touch upon her protective instinct. But, as the second watcher continued to appear, this time every other day rather than twice a week, as before, she remained as solid as steel and just as impenetrable, saying nothing to Sansa save a few polite mentions of her name and, once or twice, a _how are you today?_

Sansa had been so sorely disappointed it was as if she had been taken all over again, ripped from her ruined home and locked in a smooth, gray cage. The woman did not have the same weakness as Sansa's first watcher, the one who had said even less to her but who, she knew, wanted her exactly as he should not have. The woman disappeared more quietly than he did, without any fanfare at all, so quickly and easily Sansa believed she might have simply been given another job, perhaps another person to watch. One afternoon she left as always, and the next day, another watcher appeared to take her place.

Of the three, this last one was the kindest and, by the same logic, the most cruel.

This watcher was immediately different from the other two. Instead of a kind of massive, unmovable guard, as she'd grown to expect, he was a dwarf - reaching only just higher than her waist, a mop of blonde hair on his head, one eye green, the other nearly black. He was frightening to look at, at first, yet he spoke to her softly, gently, and he carried on discussions with her. Before him, Sansa's interactions consisted only of a few brief snatches of conversation with the people who served her food, the doctor they sent her to at the end of every week, the one who asked her questions and questions, all of them using different words but asking the same thing: are you loyal, are you loyal, are you loyal to your country? Yes, Doctor, she is. She always was.

"Do you understand why you're here?" the third watcher had asked her, his mouth slanting into a smile. "Do you know why you are being kept here?"

"I need to prove myself," she replied, smoothly, easily, as easily as Cersei had taught her. "I wish only to serve my country, Comrade."

The man's grin had widened. "Very good, Sansa." The use of only her given name was a reminder of their rank - he was in charge here, not her. He was allowed her name, but she was not allowed his. Names were a privilege, not a right.

_Your life,_ Cersei had told her, _is a privilege, not a right. Do you understand me, little dove?_

"And do you know where we are?"

"A city." She said it too fast, without any hesitation, and for a moment she was nervous. This was a piece of information she should not have let on she was thinking about, but the words were already out. "I don't know which one," she continued, hoping to cover her slip.

Rather than being angry, though, the man seemed even more pleased. "Clever girl," he had said. "You may survive us yet."

Their conversations were always filled with such things. He asked her a few questions, she responded, he seemed pleased at her answers. He was always praising her, calling her intelligent, calling her insightful, calling her good. He appeared every day, her third watcher, and up until a week before the device appeared, before the man in the suit and the glasses appeared, he was as amiable and agreeable and kind as any man she ever had the pleasure to meet.

Yet only a day before he, too, disappeared, his demeanor had changed. Sansa was displeased at the difference; she had grown to enjoy their conversations, even in spite of her knowledge that he was one of _them_. She could never have trusted the man, but she thought in other circumstances he could have been her friend.

On his last day in her room, he had stood instead of sitting in the chair beside the door, eye level with her as she sat on her cot. His expression was torn, and she knew, beyond any doubt, that he was worried for her.

"You are a very clever girl," he had told her. "I have enjoyed your company very much, Sansa."

"And I yours, Comrade."

"You are very smart," he had said. "I fear -" He stopped himself before continuing, took a breath, picked up the trail of another sentence, tugging on it as if it were a loose thread that could unravel an entire winter coat. "- it will be somewhere, do you understand? They will send you somewhere soon."

"Where?" She was so careful not to show it, but her heart fluttered from the thought as a bird in a cage. They would release her, she knew it now, they would release her because she had done so well. She had proven her loyalty. Her dead father, her dead mother, her dead brothers, her lost sister - they would forgive her when they met again as the dead may meet again. She was not a threat, they saw it now, she was not a traitor.

The man had winced. "Not yet," he said. At the sudden look in his eyes, the sudden expression of defeat, Sansa finally understood what he was trying to convey. He did not fear because he would miss her; he feared because of what they wanted to do with her.

The third watcher had reached suddenly toward the wall, pulling at a loose stone and reaching his hand in through the hole. Sansa had done the same, when she first arrived, searching for something on the other side. The watcher knew more about the room than her though, and soon enough he had unearthed a small, metal object which he dropped to the ground. He knelt beside it, held the stone against it, and crushed the piece underneath it until it was only a fine powder. Once he was certain the object had been destroyed, he stood again, seeming almost shaken in what he had done.

"You did too well here, Sansa," he had said. "They are going to ask for your absolute devotion, and you will give it. There will be no other choice."

"They will be certain of your loyalty," he had said. "They are going to send in Littlefinger soon."

Then, at the door, just before he saw her for the last time, the third watcher had turned to look at her, his eye focused and unblinking. Watch me, those eyes told her, listen to what I will tell you. No one else will tell you anything.

"My name is Tyrion," he told her, something like a smile flickering across his ugly face, now as dear to her as the sight of her own hands. "You are in Moscow. You will live through this, Sansa. I promise you that."

Then, without another word, he was gone, and she was alone once again.

Then, only a few days later, there appeared the device on the table. Then, only a few days after that, there appeared the man in the suit, his glasses shielding his eyes from her.

The man finally finished fiddling with the device, settling back against his hard, uncomfortable chair - she knew it was uncomfortable, of course, as it was the same as her own. He left one hand on the table, and it betrayed no tension, no concern: his fingers were relaxed, his palms smooth and without callouses, his nails trimmed and neat.

He smelled warm, she thought, like tobacco smoke, though every breath he took unfurled into the air in the taste of mint, cold and clean.

Littlefinger, for she knew at once that this was he, tilted his head, regarding her carefully. When he did, his face turned half in shadow, allowing her to glimpse behind his horn-rimmed glasses. His eyes, she saw, were entirely gray, as gray as the concrete walls, the concrete floor, and they were closed off as if he had drawn curtains behind them, just in front of his mind.

She searched for a weakness, a crack to fit her hands into, grab tightly and pull, and found none.

"Hello, Comrade Stark," he said at last. "I take it you have not seen one of these before?" Here, he gestured to the device, as proudly as if it were his own flesh and blood.

Sansa shook her head, her gaze still fixed on him. She felt, for some unexplainable reason, that she must keep her eyes on this man at all times, as if he were the razor edge of a cliff. _If I look away,_ her mind told her, shivering, _then I will surely stumble and fall to my death_.

"It is a teaching tool. I will use it to -" he licked his lips, a quick dart of his tongue, and the gesture was so human that she nearly startled, " _tutor_ you, shall we say."

"I wish only to learn, Comrade."

The man's mouth twitched beneath his neat facial hair. "He was right about you, wasn't he." It wasn't a question, and Sansa did not treat it as such.

"I am sure we will get along well, Comrade," she said slowly, carefully, trying to gauge his reaction.

The man leaned toward her across the table, suddenly, and Sansa flinched away. Littlefinger took off his glasses and laid them on the table, smiled wide so that it showed his teeth, straight and even and white as marble. He was almost handsome when he smiled, she could not help but think.

"I am sure we will get along splendidly," he said, and he seemed almost _vicious_ in his excitement at the idea, " _Sansa Stark._ "

His eyes, she thought as she met them with her own, were not so gray as she had first perceived. They were something not quite so clear, nearly gray at certain angles, nearly green in others, almost shimmering between the two even when they remained still on her face.

For all she wracked her brain for the words, Sansa could not name the color.

 

 

 


	2. a title like a hot coal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven't updated this in over a year #whoops

 

 

 

...and I have to search my body for scars, thinking, _Did he find that one last tender place to sink his teeth in?_  
** RICHARD SIKEN **

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

** ii. **

a title like a hot coal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She is singing too loud, hands covering her ears. The man with the burned face is being dragged away. Louder, louder, she sings a song she learned as a child, listening to her father's voice in front of the fire. She had such beautiful furs, she had the most beautiful jewels adorning her throat. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, glinting in the light. The song was in English; her father was teaching her English. _Zvyozdochka moya_ , he said. _My little star_ , he said.

Sansa woke up, sweat drying on her face. The gray room was cold, and she shivered.

 

 

 

 

He came to her every day for longer than she could seem to keep track. He did not stay nearly as long as her third watcher had, but every morning she awoke to the sound of her door being opened, the shrill clang of metal screeching against metal as it was locked (the door is always locked), and his eternally shined shoes tapping against the hard floor. Littlefinger held out a small breakfast to her, usually bread, but on certain days, if he had found her responses particularly interesting, some fruit. Once, he unearthed a flask from his inside jacket pocket and held it carelessly out to her, his face unreadable. Sansa had swallowed her sip down fast, before he changed his mind, and was surprised to taste red wine, not vodka, as she had been expecting. It was so pleasant she almost wanted to cry.

The last time she had had red wine, she knew, her father had been alive.

The man was kind enough, did not strike her or say anything cruel, and he smiled at her often - though, she noticed, the smiles never reached further than his mouth. His grayish eyes always remained closed as the shutters of a window. Yet still Sansa was wary of him. He did not seem to serve much purpose during his visits; he merely asked her dozens of questions, sometimes the same ones over and over and over again. Sometimes the same ones, one right after another. Who are you? How old are you? What color is your hair? Are you loyal to your country?

Then, after he exhausted his list of inquiries, he would stand to pull the band from her arm, the buzzer from her finger, all without a single touch of his skin to hers, and, with another one of his empty, sardonic grins, he would leave her alone once again.

 

 

 

 

She lost track of the days long before the file appeared, but it was some time between Littlefinger's twentieth and thirtieth visits. On that day, no one came to her room. Indeed, there was nothing at all to disturb her solitude save the door opening twice, like clockwork, and her meals sliding along the floor.

At the very beginning, she had been so very greedy with the food, certain that every meal they served her was to be her last. She ate every bite of toughened meat, every crumb of powdery bread. She guzzled down the drinks they gave her, uncaring if it was vodka or water or poison. If she was to die, she knew, it did not matter how it was done - just that it was. And if they wanted her to die, she knew, then die she would.

Yet the days passed, and she remained alive. Eventually, a man appeared in the doorway, and he led her to a small room, and a doctor asked her questions, and he seemed pleased with all of her answers. And then her first watcher appeared.

And then, long after she lost track of the days, the file appeared.

For a while that day, she ignored it. She did not know when someone would have had the opportunity to enter her room, but such a trivial thing did not matter. Sansa continued her regular routine, the one she had formed long before Littlefinger was even an echo of a thought in her mind. She was still not trusted with writing instruments, and the device was nailed to the table - lest she lift it over her head, perhaps, and smash Littlefinger's skull in - but she was at last, some time before his arrival, given the opportunity to read again. The doctor provided a selection of approved materials at the end of their sessions, and she chose from them according to her mood that week. As a child, she was as greedy with books as she had been with food at the beginning of her captivity, but she learned quickly to savor the act as one savors a rich meal: each book had to last her an entire week, of course, and while reading it twice was pleasurable enough, beginning the same story a third or fourth time was less so.

She had just finished her book that week for a second time when she at last tripped her fingers across the cot to graze over the thick, beige paper. It might be important, she told herself. It must be, if they allowed her to see it.

Before she could stop herself, she had grabbed at the file and flipped it open, settling it on her lap. She read through the file once, twice, a third time, her heart beating with reckless abandon in her throat, the heart, being as it was, having no concept of rationing itself.

 

 

 

 

"Who are you?"

The device was chirping, needle swinging wildly from one side of the paper to the other. It was as black as night, its buttons gleaming. If she could have created a monster, Sansa thought, she would make it in the shape of a machine nailed to a table in a room without windows and without a key.

"Please," she almost begged, trying to pry the buzzer from her finger, "it hurts."

"It will always hurt. You will need to become accustomed to the pain. You will need to, or you will not last a day beyond these walls. Not one day." Littlefinger leaned toward her, glasses shining, hiding his eyes, the grayish greenish nothingness. He pressed the button again, and again, a shock went through her. "Who are you?"

"Alayne Stone," she tried again, nearly screaming. "Please!"

"You're lying. The machine says you're lying. More than that, I can see it in your face." He was almost snarling, and, for a moment, Sansa thought he looked almost desperate. " _Convince me, Sansa Stark._ "

She heaved out a sob, the first sound of the word _please_ forming again on her mouth, but before she could make a noise Littlefinger hit her across the face. Sansa reared back, eyes widening, tears ceasing altogether. She could feel the imprint of his hand on her cheek, blooming pink and red. It was the first time he had touched her on purpose.

He was breathing heavily, nearly panting. Sansa gazed at the man in front of her in wonderment. She could see the threads where she hadn't seen them before, in his eyes, in his mouth. He was unraveling, moment by moment. He could be unraveled; she could be the one to unravel him.

Littlefinger composed himself, sitting up tall and staring carefully. As if she were a code he could decipher, if only he could find the right beginning, find the right way to crack her open and take what he needed.

"Do you want to try again?" he asked her in English. His voice was accentless, clipped and crisp, like an American.

It only took Sansa half a moment to grasp his meaning.

"Yes," she said in kind, in English. Like an American. "Let's try again, sir."

 

 

 

 

She thought of Tyrion often. She thought about the way he handed her his name, a privilege. A precious commodity. She thought of the diamonds and rubies and sapphires sparkling on her neck. She thought of her heart crawling out of her body through that neck, up through her throat, trying to leave her behind. She thought of the file, a name stamped on the paper, date of birth, location, occupation. She thought of Cersei saving her, holding out her hand, lips painted red as if with blood. Come here little dove. Come with me, I will help you. She thought in Russian  _zvyozdochka moya_ and in English _my little star_ and thought _I am in Moscow_ and thought _my name is Sansa Stark_ and thought  _I am from St. Petersburg_ and thought _I am from New York_ and thought _my name is Alayne Stone_.

Sansa thought of being in a gray room, hands covering her ears, singing loudly to cover the noise of a man dying. Or as good as dying. She was singing in English, a song that played on the gramophone while her parents hissed at each other.

The music, she learned later, was recriminating evidence. Evidence, she learned, of treason. Her father was stupid. He behaved stupidly and he said the wrong things to the wrong people and he got his family killed. He got himself killed. He taught her English and did not think once of the consequences. He played Western songs and watched Western movies and didn't think once.

Sansa sang ( _you always hurt the one you love, the one you shouldn't hurt at all_ ) while they dragged the burned man away and, unknowing, she brought Littlefinger closer to her door with every single note.

She thought of Littlefinger, his eyes hidden from her by the light. She read the file again and sang,  _you always take the sweetest rose and crush it till the petals fall_.

 

 

 


	3. a swarm of swallows thinning out against the aurora borealis

 

 

 

Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.  
**JOYCE CAROL OATES**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

** iii. **

a swarm of swallows thinning out against the aurora borealis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"What is your name, Comrade?" he asked her in Russian, and she said, "Sansa Stark."

"What is your name, miss?" he asked her in English and she said, "Alayne Stone."

Each time, he smiled, and the smile did not reach his eyes.

 

 

 

 

Though he still never gave her his name, in her mind, he was Littlefinger. She knew nothing else of him, not his true name, nor his age, nor his occupation. But she had that piece of knowledge, as vital to her survival as her own lungs, and she hoarded it to herself, careful and quiet and waiting.

She could no longer keep track of the days when the inevitable happened. It had been months since he arrived, months of worrying over his presence, his purpose. In the doctor's office, the doctor asked her, "Are you loyal to your country?" and she said, "Yes."

In her room, while she sat on the cot, the machine abandoned in the corner of the room, Littlefinger stood over her and asked, "Are you loyal to your country?" and she did not hesitate to reply.

"Yes," she said, barely getting out the word. Sansa recalled Tyrion's eyes as he told her that she had done well. She wanted to sing again, the way she did for the burned man, but her throat was shut tight. Littlefinger took a step closer to her, and Sansa recoiled, a reflex leftover from Joffrey. When he stopped, she straightened again, clearing her voice. "I am loyal to my country, Comrade."

Littlefinger smirked, his eyes glinting. "I have a question for you, Sansa Stark." He said her name so casually, rolling it off his tongue with a sibilant hiss. _Sansa Stark_ \- as if he had a right to it. As if he had always owned each syllable, bought them with the money he used to buy red wine and fruit. She almost shivered.

He was silent for a moment, considering her. In one fluid motion, he sat next to her on the cot, the leg of his pant brushing against her bare thigh. At this, she did shiver, her skin prickling in sudden goosebumps, like there had been a gust of wind in the middle of the room.

"Do you feel you are ready?" he said, and the sentence did not end as a question would. His voice was flat, stiff. He spoke the words in Russian, but his voice sounded strange, as if he had trouble figuring out how to group the words together in the right order. Like he was new to the language, or had not spoken it in a long time. Sansa frowned in confusion to hear it, her brow furrowing.

"Yes, Comrade, I am ready," she said, and for a moment she swore she could see his eyes shine.

"Beautiful," he said in English, and for a moment she swore he leaned toward her. His eyes were fixed on her jaw. His hand twitched once, and then, as though he could do nothing to stop it, reached out to push strands of her hair away from her face.

 

 

 

 

She thought about it later. She could not halt her mind, racing as it was. She tried to ration the thought, tried to savor the feeling of the dip of her cot, savor the fabric of his suit brushing against her skin, savor how he had nearly touched her. A month earlier, she had considered the taste of an orange segment he gave her, the crisp, sour bite of it under her teeth, and she had allowed the thought of it only once a week.

Yet the thought could not be rationed. She thought of it constantly and greedily, devouring it repeatedly the way a child does with a tin of chocolates.

In the dark, after he had long since gone and the light in her room was out, she lay on her front, pressing the heel of her hand between her legs and rocking back and forth.

Afterwards, as her breathing evened and she drifted to sleep, her stomach twisted at the thought of him seeing what she had done, and she could not begin to say why.

 

 

 

 

Several years earlier, Joffrey had kissed her for the first time in the middle of a snow flurry, and she had thought it so romantic. How gentile, she told her sister, who sneered at her words. How golden his hair, and how bright his blue eyes! She had seen Joffrey in his colors - in his pale skin, his yellow hair, his red mouth as he screamed at her. Since being in the room, the only colors Sansa encountered were shades of black and gray, from the clothing she was given, to the walls, to the eyes of the man who visited her. With the colors, she had seen only vague impressions, outlines of outlines of real things. In the gray, she could see the details, suddenly. She could see how her hair was bright against her skin, how a blue vein in Littlefinger's wrist segmented like a river, how he swallowed hard and watched as she drank red wine and wiped her stained mouth with the back of her hand.

She considered Tyrion, his black and green eyes. He had told her they would send her somewhere. She didn't care what they wanted with her, as long as she was allowed to leave the room.

When Littlefinger came to her again a week later and set up the wires, the device, she intentionally flexed her fingers, so that the tips of them brushed against his hand. She did not stop there, purposefully tracing an invisible line across his wrist. He startled, leaning back, and withdrew his hand. The machine whirred, the needle beginning to swing wildly.

"My apologies," she said, her voice light and lilting. She nearly sang the words. "I did not ask permission to touch you, Comrade. I will not take such a liberty again."

"Sansa," he said, but he did not finish his sentence. He tried, once, but did not succeed, the words coming out as a rush of air. Littlefinger composed himself after another moment, said, "Apologies accepted, Comrade. Be sure it does not happen again."

Sansa felt dizzy. She had broken a rule, some unspoken rule that he had not anticipated for her to break. "What is your name?" she asked, bold in a way she hadn't been since she was fifteen and believed she was in love.

Littlefinger was a statue. His face was closed off, his eyes empty. "Is it within your rights to ask, Comrade Stark?"

She did not flush. She did not move. Sansa barely registered the sound of the needle scratching the long strip of paper. They will send you somewhere, Tyrion had told her, and she desperately wished, not for the first time, that he had never told her such a thing. "I would like to know to whom I have been speaking."

His jaw was set, and behind his closed mouth, his teeth clicked together. "You do not need to know."

"I believe that I do," she said, this time standing. Her feet were bare, and her toes knocked into the shined leather of his shoes. There was little space between them, and she could almost feel the heat emanating from his body. She was almost always cold there, and she envied his suit jacket, the collar of his shirt. She wanted to press her blue hands against his stomach and watch him jump at the feeling. _This is what they made me,_ she would say, _these hands are the same as hands you would find in a morgue_. She wanted to pressed her hands against his throat and watch his eyes bulge, his face redden and become purple. She wanted him to press his hands against her and clutch her hips with his fingers until she bruised - she wanted to see the colors she would turn.

"Give me your name, Littlefinger," she said, her voice sounding to her like someone else's entirely. "I would like to know it."

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
